Category: Ljubljana

On May 9, 1945 Ljubljana was liberated by Slovene Partisan Forces. In celebration of this there is an annual event “Po poteh spominov in tovarištva” – basically a hike around Ljubljana, more or less where barbed wire was installed by the Italian occupator. I go on this hike every year and am planning to go this year as well. And I have a question.

Would anyone else like to go to? I’m planning on doing some “live blogging” as I installed a nice little plugin for posting via mobile phone, or I may even take my laptop, camcoder and wireless card and do some video-blogging.

This is just an initial “sounding of the terrain” and I’m not confirming a mass event just yet. But if there’s enough of you who’d like to partake in this celebration of liberty and Partisan music, we can have a lot of fun.

It’s an approximately 6-7 hour hike, mostly flat terrain (just one hill to overcome) and it takes place on Saturday, May 12th. Unless I fall ill, I’ll do it regardless of the weather.

Photo of RW via The Scotsman – photo of mayor Janković via The Firm™

Now you know where Robbie will end up when his career is over…

A man opposing the reconstruction of Ljubljana Central market tears up slogans of supporters of the renovation.

A rally against the renovation of Ljubljana Central Market took place yesterday afternoon. At the same time a group of supporters of renovation staged their own rally, much to annoyance of (mostly elderly) people who fervently opposed Mayor Janković’s plan to build a parking lot below the Central Market, claiming that the nearby Castle hill would be a much more appropriate location.

And while the anti-parking lot rally cursed mayor Janković (a piece i did for The Firm™ is available here), sending him “back to Serbia” and accusing him of lining his own pockets, it once again became clear that those, who value the Central European (that is Austrian) moral, architectual, social, policital and cultural status quo, are actually more brutal and savage than any of the trully Balkan savage tribes.

I understand that over there they have a long tradition of picketing. But this form of democracy is way too much for this sorry country. You know: you can take a man out of the Balkans, but can never take the Balkans out of a man.

Once again – shit is brewing…

Quarters of Ljubljana. Could this map become radically different?

During yesterday’s session of Ljubljana City Council rumours started flying about several quarters of Ljubljana seceding from the city and forming their own municipalities. Among them are Moste, Polje, Črnuče and Dravlje

The main reason for this line of thought is of course lack of funds provided for the seventeen quarters of Ljubljana in this year’s budget (which has yet to be adopted, presumably next week).

While nothing is (as yet) official, it is not totally impossible. There are a couple of criteria a particular area has to meet in order to form its own municipality:

-at least 5000 inhabitants
-an elementary school
-a community health centre (“zdravstveni dom”)
-a post office
-a library
-appropriate infrastructure (tap water, electricity, seweage)
-financial services of a savings bank or bank

Articles 13. and 13a. of the Law on Self-Government

Hopefully this will not happen, because in the long term both Ljubljana and the would-be breakaway quarters would be worse off (except Sostro quarter, which in my opinion is so radically rural that it has no place in an urban municipality).

But this is yet another example of why Slovenia has 210 municipalities. Because the current Law on financing municipalities favours small and unsustainable municipalities which are dependant on government money, thus being more prone to government influence.

Danica Simšič saw her ruling coalition disintegrate. Could it be that Zoran Janković will see his city disintegrate?

Trzaska cesta at 1 A.M.

In case you ever wondered what is going on in Ljubljana at one o’clock in the morning in the middle of the week, here is your answer…

absolutely nothing 🙂